Website Detail Page

published by
the Integrated Teaching and Learning Program: Teach Engineering

This resource is a standards-based curricular unit for grades 7-8 designed to introduce students to the composition of light. It includes detailed lesson plans for eight classroom activities in which students build their own spectroscopes, gather data about light sources, analyze patterns and fingerprints, learn to read light intensity graphs, and use data they collect online to explore Saturn and Titan. Each lesson contains worksheets, warm-up questions, vocabulary lists, safety guidelines, and assessments.

This resource is part of the TeachEngineering digital library, which provides teacher-tested lessons designed to connect real-world experiences with curricular content in the K-12 science/math classroom.

Units (2)

Curriculum Unit Grades 7-8A spectrograph is an instrument that separates an incoming light beam into a frequency spectrum that appears like a rainbow of color. Early spectroscopes were simply prisms, but modern ones generally use diffraction gratings to separate the light into frequency bands. In this curriculum unit, students build their own "fancy" spectrograph, learn to read light intensity graphs, and then use the data they collect online to explore Saturn and Titan. Worksheets and tests included. May be taught as a short module or as a two-week unit.

Topic: Nature and Behavior of LightUnit Title: Electromagnetic Radiation and the Spectrum

Curriculum Unit Grades 7-8A spectrograph is an instrument that separates an incoming light beam into a frequency spectrum that appears like a rainbow of color. Early spectroscopes were simply prisms, but modern ones generally use diffraction gratings to separate the light into frequency bands. In this curriculum unit, students build their own "fancy" spectrograph, learn to read light intensity graphs, and then use the data they collect online to explore Saturn and Titan. Worksheets and tests included. May be taught as a short module or as a two-week unit.

Disclaimer: ComPADRE offers citation styles as a guide only. We cannot offer interpretations about citations as this is an automated procedure. Please refer to the style manuals in the Citation Source Information area for clarifications.